'This is home:' Bosnian refugees come of age

Cassaundra Baber

Wednesday

Jun 24, 2009 at 12:01 AMJun 24, 2009 at 1:08 PM

A decade ago, Utica, N.Y., became the new home to more than 1,000 children and teenagers displaced with their families from war-torn Bosnia. Today, those children — grown into adults — have become fully incorporated into the community's fabric. Despite the difficult past from which they’ve come, the young adults have fast become a viable part of life in the city.

A decade ago, Utica, N.Y., became the new home to more than 1,000 children and teenagers displaced with their families from war-torn Bosnia. Today, those children — grown into adults — have become fully incorporated into the community's fabric.

Despite the difficult past from which they’ve come, the young adults have fast become a viable part of life in the city. They are teachers, artists, store managers, students and entrepreneurs.

They are the newest addition to a city rich in heritage made up of German, Italian, Irish and Polish immigrants.

But what does that new, coming-of-age addition look like?

It looks like 22-year-old Dzevdana Ahmetovic, a teacher’s aide for the House of the Good Shepherd, who still remembers the chill that stole her sleep in the concrete Croatian chicken slaughterhouse where she and 1,000 other Bosnian refugees hid for almost two years.

It looks like 29-year-old Zaim Dedic, a motivated entrepreneur whose businesses – a New York City-inspired nightclub and interpreting service – allow him a perfect balance between his Bosnian heritage and American home.

And it looks like 30-year-old Isobel Abner Bliss, a costume designer at Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute who found her artful abilities in a Croatian refugee camp, where she wrote, directed and designed plays and fashion shows to help the camp escape their fears.

The Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees estimates that about 5,000 Bosnian refugees live in Utica – a large percentage of which have bought and revitalized homes and businesses in the city's east side.

Keeping tradition

These young refugees’ assimilation is seen as both a blessing and a curse to their older counterparts, who fear for the loss of their heritage.

The older generation’s effort to hold on to that culture is visible in the Bosnian-centered grocery stores, restaurants, nightclubs and mosques that have sprouted along city streets.

Amy’s Grocery and Deli on South Street, which sells traditional Bosnian food, is one such example.

Owner Dzevsad Dizdarevic believes his store is one way to hold on to his culture and to keep it alive for his community and three children — only one of which is Bosnian-born.

“I can’t stop them from becoming 100 percent American, but I want to make sure I keep their Bosnian traditions in them,” he said.

Staying connected with and sharing traditional food, language and frequent visits to Bosnia will help him do that, he added.

However, he is resigned to the possibility that his efforts might not be enough, and the generations to come might never know their roots the way he would hope.

Dizdarevic’s fears are common among first-generation immigrants, said Reed Coughlan, co-author of “Bosnian Refugees in America: New Communities, New Cultures,” published in 2006 by Springer.

“The younger children will become American, and the parents will say, ‘I want you to hang on to your language and hang on to your culture.’ And the children will say, ‘Aww, Mom, I don’t want that; I want to blend in,’” he said. “That’s often a source of intergenerational conflict.”

A younger generation’s ability to assimilate more quickly than its older counterparts is normally the cause of that conflict, he said.

And while the Bosnian refugees assimilate more easily than African or Asian refugees because their European descent makes them look more American, the younger group of Bosnian refugees transition even more smoothly.

That ease is directly related to their ability to learn the language, Coughlan said.

“People who come here as early teens – and it has to be early, not late — can learn English and speak it without an accent. If you come after the age of 13 or 14, the brain lateralizes and something happens where you’re no longer able to learn a language without an accent,” he said. “They’ll have an easier time assimilating because they can’t be distinguished from other Americans.”

Coming home

And as language is important in assimilation, it’s likewise important in holding on to the culture, say refugees young and old.

Ahmetovic, Dedic and Bliss each recognize the importance of holding on to their native tongue.

“The language is what connects us,” said Dedic, who settled in Utica at age 15. “It’s what makes us Bosnian.”

But language alone doesn’t keep these young people connected to their heritage.

They each share memories of a nation in turmoil, a common value system, a strong work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit.

Likewise, they each stay connected to that past in their own ways: Dedic, with his ability to help non-English speaking Bosnians communicate; Ahmetovic, with her love of Bosnian music and commitment to sharing the language with her younger family members; Bliss, with her art that is just as much influenced by her Bosnian heritage as it is by her American home.

Still, America is home, they said.

“I feel Americanized. I’m more comfortable with a lot more aspects of American culture than I am with Bosnian,” said Ahmetovic, a Utica College graduate, who cringes when she sees grammatical errors in English writing. “This is home.”

Observer-Dispatch

‘We cannot get separated again’

Dzevdana Ahmetovic was 8-years-old when war in Bosnia forced her, her mother and brother to flee without her father to a Croatian refugee camp.

It was 14 years ago, but she can’t forget the sounds of grenades and machine guns that kept her from sound sleep.

She remembers woods littered with land mines as her playground — a thin sheet of plastic her winter sled. Barbed wire lined the fences encasing her interim home, a subconscious reminder of the fragility of her safety.

“When you’re a little kid, you’re really not aware of what is going on,” said Ahmetovic, now 22.

“Your parents say you have to be here, and you just listen …. You don’t know why you can’t go outside and play with your friends. You don’t know why you have to live in a basement or why you don’t have electricity or running water.”

But mostly she remembers leaving the large building and trekking through fields of corn with her mother, aunt and brother and boarding the United Nations bus back to Bosnia, where she would be reunited with her father – whom she no longer recognized because he was bearded and gaunt.

Six months later, they would part again.

Her father would settle in Utica. He would send $20 a week to Bosnia until they would reunite Feb. 14, 1997, at Syracuse Hancock International Airport.

She would run into her father’s arms and cry into his shoulder.

He would hold her the entire 45-minute ride to their new home in Utica, and 10-year-old Dzevdana would have but one thought: “We cannot get separated again.”

‘It’s always a part of me’

For five years Isobel Abner Bliss lived in the dark. Literally.

War took her city’s light.

“I lived in a city that was not there,” she said of Banja Luka, Bosnia.

“And even though there was no war in the city, you could still feel the effects of war around you.”

Wood-burning stoves heated water for baths and washing clothes. There was no electricity. Military tanks wreaked havoc on city streets raking over the pavement, turning it to rubble. Desperate for money and food, people looted stores and each others’ homes.